


Brothers On A Hotel Bed

by PBJellie



Category: South Park
Genre: Angst, Cannon-Typical Drug Use, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Rehabilitation, Religion, conversion therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 01:22:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13559667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PBJellie/pseuds/PBJellie
Summary: Tweek seeks help for a drug addiction. Craig eagerly awaits his return and is then disappointed.





	Brothers On A Hotel Bed

“I'll, nrg, I'll be back soon, Craig,” Tweek jittered, hands pulling through his hair. “It'll, ngh, be better, man. So much, nrg, better.”  
  
“I love you, honey,” he whispered, wiping the tears from his face. They both agreed that this would be the best option. Tweek had never meant to become addicted to meth, and it's not like the Tucker's had piles of cash in their basement for treatment. This place, Christian, it said on the front page, would help him, free of charge. They were fortunate, his dad said, Tweek was young, sixteen, he could get clean and continue his life.  
  
“Man, don't, do not cry!” Tweek shouted, scratching furiously at his forearms. Instinctively, Craig reached out to steady him, to comfort him. “Gah! I'll write! Write, ngh, back, okay?”  
  
Craig nodded, leaning forward to peck at his boyfriend's lips. The building they were outside of seemed, nice, even if it was in Tennessee. A tall woman in a gray blazer frowned at the kiss. He stifled the urge to give her the finger. Who the fuck did this lady think she was? This was his boyfriend, he'd kiss his boyfriend anywhere that he damned pleased.  
  
Even outside of rehab.  
  
He waved goodbye, trying to stay dry eyed. Thomas Tucker looped an arm around his sons shoulders as the walked back to the station wagon. Tweek had vomited twice on the way here, something about withdrawals. He vibrated in the backseat, screaming occasionally, holding Craig's hand for the duration of the drive.  
  
Even in the McDonald's they stopped in for lunch, not that Tweek had eaten anything. He drank half of his Sprite though, and he refilled it, for the car, he muttered. Craig climbed into the backseat, on autopilot, and saw the drink still full in the cup holder.  
  
They hadn't know anything was wrong with Tweek until a week ago. It was a shock to the town that the coffee had been laced with meth, more so that Tweek drank upwards of thirty cups a day. The Tucker's were his guardians now, even though Craig was fairly certain that the bulk of that responsibility fell on him.  
  
“You really gonna make me chauffeur you all the way back to South Park?” Thomas asked with a chuckle. Craig raised his head off of the headrest, eyes heavy. “It's no problem, kiddo, hotel is just thirty minutes out. We'll do the bulk of our driving tomorrow. How's that sound, champ?”  
  
Craig let out a groan. It sounded terrible. Sixteen hours in a car, alone, with his embarrassing father, Sleeping in a bed without Tweek sounded like a drag. They'd been so close for the last six years, what was he going to do alone?  
  
Did he even know how to be alone?  
  
He let out another moan as the car shifted into gear. Thomas clicked his tongue, eyes scanning the road as Craig convinced himself that he was not crying. He had allergies, and this new state, this new place, this new existence, was throwing them off. It simply couldn't be helped.  
  
“Cheer up, he'll be back before you know it! They're gonna keep him up with his school work and you'll be able to spend the whole summer together, doing whatever it is that you do.” Thomas winked at the end of that statement, and to Craig's revulsion he caught it in the rear view mirror.  
  
“Dad,” he complained, sniffing up snot, “it's not like that. We don't do those sorts of things. We just watch like, anime and play video games, kid stuff. Sometimes I film it when Clyde wants to pretend to be the guy from Jackass.”  
  
“You're not a kid, you know. It's, uh, it's okay to have, oh geeze, it's okay to have sexual urges and act upon them.” The car pulled into the parking lot of a shoddy looking motel, with a neon sign that spouted vacancy.  
  
“Dad!” Craig shouted, rolling his eyes to the peeling headliner in the car. He wanted to rip the cheap beige fabric straight off it's tact. “Stop it, you're embarrassing me!”  
  
“Why, I mean, you're almost seventeen. It's natural to have desires, especially since you've been dating for such a long time. Have I taught you how to put on a condom?”  
  
Craig unbuckled his seat belt and slammed the car door. He shouted while staring at the room doors plagued with lines of dirt. “You and everyone else in that damn town! I know how condoms work, we're just not ready!”  
  
“I understand that you're upset, this has been a rough day. But we talked about the proper way to vent our frustration, and slamming things and screaming is not that way, is it?” Thomas manually locked the car, cautiously watching his son as he pulled the hem of his blue hat over his eyes.  
  
“No, Dad,” he said after a few deep breathes. Obediently he slinked behind his father to the front desk, where they have to press a button to be buzzed in. An man with snagged teeth and a salt and pepper beard slid a key card through a tiny hole in a plexiglass window.  
  
They walked to their room, Craig's eyes cast down at his father's work boots. They were dirty, mud caked up the sides, but no clots broke lose, not even as he stomped on the concrete path. He didn't purposefully stomp, he didn't have a temper like Craig, he was just a lumbering man.  
  
He sighed as he collapsed on the queen bed on the far side of the room. His father was a gracious man, and said nothing of his intermittent sniffling throughout the night.  
  
Craig went back to school, mournfully studying as he waited for a letter from Tweek. How long could mail take? Why do they have to use mail? The internet exists for a reason. He could have instantly been reassured of Tweek's safety and well-being, but phones were against the rules, distracted from healing.  
  
Tweek didn't need to heal, he just needed to get off of meth. It's not like he sought out the drug. It wasn't his conscious choice. The places in Denver didn't offer scholarships, and this place, this mercy whatever it's called, something hockey, was free.  
  
It took twenty days for Craig to get a letter addressed to him in familiar handwriting. Craig Tucker, it said in sloppy cursive. It was the same writing that used to grace the chalkboard outside the coffee shop. That board didn't exist anymore, there was no coffee shop, not after the incident.  
  
The letter was painfully brief.  
  


 

  
_Still feel sick. Nadia holds my hair back when I puke. I'm letting them cut it off tomorrow._  
Sorry,  
Tweek  
  


 

  
Craig let out a laugh through his nose. He always loved Tweek's thick gold hair, but it wasn't that big a deal. Whatever made him comfortable, that was the priority. Hair would grow back, boyfriends didn't, or something like that.  
  
He stumbled around the house to find a pen, then sat down at his rarely used desk to bang out a reply.

  
_Dear Tweek,_

 

He started. He rolled his eyes, crumpling the paper into a ball and shooting it into the trash can. The love of his life deserved better than some cookie cutter response.  
  


 

  
_Tweek,_

__  
That sucks. Sorry you still feel sick. If you cut your hair maybe you could get a mohawk, that'd look soooo cool. School is boring. Clyde tried jump off of the roof at Token's house, but Stan talked him out of it. Stan, right?  
  
Do you know when you can come home?  
  
I love you and think about you everyday,  
Craig Tucker  


 

 __  
He considered signing it with a heart, but didn't want to be seen like a girl, or a doting boyfriend. Even though he was a doting boyfriend. Tweek never really appreciated the excess affection Craig had to offer, and that was fine. In hindsight it was probably the drugs, right? Who wouldn't want a boyfriend who held the door open for you when you entered school? Or let you ride on the handlebars of their bike?  
  
Tweek certainly wanted him, he knew that much. He just had a different way of communicating it.  
  
The next letter wasn't for a month. Craig had forgotten that he was expecting anything until his mother pinned it to the fridge. The letter was short, like the first. Maybe he didn't have time to spend writing. He must have a lot of school work.  
  


 

  
_Craig,_  
  
They think I can come home next month, if I behave. Behaving is hard Craig. There are so many expectations.  
  
I hope I can live up to them.  


 

 __  
He didn't sign his name, but Tweek had always been a bit kooky. That was his appeal as a kid. He yelled and he screamed, then he'd bust your ass out of trouble with a bazooka.  
  


 

  
_Tweek,  
_

_I'm glad that you can home. Don't worry about expectations, just be yourself. That's what Red Racer would say._  
  
I love you so much,  
Craig  


 

 __  
There were no more letters, just a phone call during the first week of summer, saying that Tweek could come home. Craig and his father piled into the car again, this time buzzing with anticipation.  
  
Craig didn't complain too loudly when his father gave him another sex talk when they cross the border of Missouri. What could possibly remind his Dad about sex in the state Missouri? Craig just huffed, tuning out the detailed instructions on how to properly finger an anus, and he awaited his favorite person in the world. __  
  
The building still looked nice enough when they arrived. They went through a foyer, or at least Craig thought it was a foyer, and waited in a stuffy office for Tweek. He has to gather his things, a young woman said. She gave him a smile that didn't reach her eyes. Craig took four deep breathes instead of flipping her off.  
  
He didn't want to embarrass Tweek.  
  
If the person he was seeing was even Tweek.  
  
His green eyes were drilled into the tile floor. He didn't look up at Craig and Thomas, but he bobbed his head in recognition. His once shaggy hair was buzzed close to his head, like in the army. Not that Tweek could pass for a soldier, his legs were far too scrawny in those khaki pants. Where did he even get a polo? He knew they didn't pack one.  
  
“Great to see you, Mr. Tucker,” the half smiling woman said as Craig drank in Tweek. He took a step forward, trying to grasp at his hand, but Tweek shied away.  
  
“Great to see Tweek, here,” Thomas laughed, belly bouncing. Craig stood still, in a shock that Tweek didn't want to be touched. He hated the pet names, but he always enjoyed the hand holding. Was meth the reason he liked to be touched?  
  
“Yes, yes it is,” she responded with hollow giggle, “just sign some paperwork and you can get on the road. It's a long drive back to where is it?”  
  
“Colorado,” Tweek said, eyes still cast downward. “I live in Colorado, ma'am.”  
  
His voice had dropped at least half an octave, and that was, by far, the softest noise he had ever heard from Tweek. He waited for him to tick, to scream something random, to need his comfort, but for the duration of the paperwork he was a stone.  
  
They didn't sit next to each other on the ride to the motel. Thomas joked that the sheets will be the same ones from the last stay, but Tweek didn't react. He simply stared at his hands. Craig peeked once, from the backseat, and he concluded that they weren't that interesting.  
  
“Must be overwhelming, huh?” Thomas asked, pulling into the same parking lot.  
  
“Yes, sir,” Tweek mumbled.  
  
“You two can catch up in the car while I get the key. Don't let anyone in, okay?” Tweek simply nodded as Craig flipped him off.  
  
“That's not righteous, Craig. You should not disrespect your elders,” Tweek chastised, eyes glued to his hands.  
  
“Fuck righteousness, I haven't seen you in forever! I miss you so much! Did you make lots of friends?” Craig excitedly prattled as Tweek stared downward.  
  
“No,” he simply stated.  
  
“Oh, well do you feel better? Clyde and Token are real anxious to see you. I was too, and now I'm seeing you. I'm so happy.”  
  
“I'm glad,” Tweek choked out, eyes stealing half a second into the mirror. Craig was perched on his hands, leaning over the center console.  
  
“Come on boys, they'll be plenty of time for that lovey dovey stuff later. Gotta rest up to make that drive home.” Thomas smiled as he pulled in suitcases.  
  
“No,” Tweek mumbled to the concrete, “love is between a man and a woman.”  
  
“What?” Craig snorted, clasping a hand on Tweek's back. He jumped away, lips fiercely moving as Craig laughed. “Good to see you kept your sense of humor. That's some funny stuff, glad you're back.”  
  
“No,” Tweek repeated as Thomas unlocked the door. “must be righteous. Divine punishment for being unrighteous.”  
  
“Calm down, you're fine, honey,” Craig tried to reassure, reaching out for his hand again. This time he was forcibly pushed away, falling back onto the bed in surprise.  
  
“Do you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?” Tweek paced back and forth through the motel, feet shuffling as his nails dig into his temples. He was starting to draw blood, and Craig just wanted to help, do anything to make him calm down.  
  
“Stop it,” he warned cautiously, hands out like stop signs. Tweek shrieked when Craig grazed his wrists.  
  
“Not allowed!” He screeched, crumpling to the ground. “I have to be holy. Children of God, Craig. We are children of God and he is disappointed!”  
  
The noise alerted Thomas, who wasted no time in dragging Tweek away. Craig watched wide eyed as Tweek clawed at his cheeks, blood dripping from his nails. He shrieked of atonement and impurities as Thomas wrapped his arms around him.  
  
“Calm down, son. You're alright. I gotcha. You didn't do nothing wrong.”  
  
“I'm disappointing God!” He yelled, hands over his face. “God can read minds and I am a disappointment. I ought to be punished. He knows!”  
  
“What the hell are you talking about?” Craig asked, hands shoved deep into his pockets.  
  
“Homosexuality is a sin, Craig. We are sinners! Filthy sinners! Good people don't have these impulses! We are not good! God doesn't want us and we will be going to hell! We'll get AIDS!”

 

“Nobody said that, Tweek. Let's just sit down on the bed and take a deep breath, okay?” Thomas pantomimed the motion of breathing, arms out and open then close to his chest, until Tweek started sobbing into a hotel pillow.

 

Craig stared at the ceiling, his father squeezed into the bed next to him, as he listened to Tweek hiccup into the night. He was on his knees come morning, crossing his heart as he hailed Mary.  
  
They didn't touch shoulders on the drive home.  
  
Tweek did not move into Craig's room, despite having his parents permission.  
  
By the end of the summer they barely spoke, Tweek drifting around the house like a ghost as Craig avoided reality.  
  
“You hate me,” Craig mumbled into his sleeve when they caught eyes in the kitchen.  
  
“No, I love you, so much,” Tweek whispered, intently pouring his orange juice.  
  
“You don't act like it,” Craig spat.  
  
“I love you so much that I want you to spend eternity happy with God. That means you can never be with me.” Tweek abandoned the filled glass, retreating to the basement, eyes full of tears.  
  
Craig, secretly thought that a lifetime with Tweek would be better than an eternity with someone else, even if it was God. And it was a shame that Tweek didn't feel the same.

 


End file.
